


misguided ghosts.

by sgrpines



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, also my first BJTM fic -- aahh!!! ;0, vague summary of the musical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgrpines/pseuds/sgrpines
Summary: Not for the first time, he wanted what he couldn’t have. Barbara and Adam longed for the lives they lost; BJ longed for a life he never had.





	misguided ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first crack at a beetlejuice fic, and it's musical-verse!! i adore the show, and I hope I've done them justice in this fic. leave a comment down below if you think I should try my hand at a second chapter! x

Beetlejuice has been called a lot of things in his (undead) life: a crook, a liar, a thief, a double-crossing specter of the worst degree. These, despite oft being spit out through gritted teeth and venomous tone, usually caused a flurry of emotions --- joy, pride, a burst of confidence long since forgotten. He usually takes these remarks as compliments, which is to say that he doesn’t quite have a history of being treated kindly. Sure, this is mostly his own fault; he seeks comfort in the horror, the terror, the thrill of shocking someone just enough to scare, yet not enough to kill. His favorite sound is a scream, his favorite look is that of pure fear; he was born bad, just a demon from Hell, doomed to walk the world of the living as but an invisible spectator. It wasn’t the living that feared him --- it was the dead, and fear him, they did. At least, until they got to know him.

The Maitlands, he would explain, were not his first rodeo, not his first tangle with a dim-witted couple and the confusion that followed. By his calculations, he’d been haunting this world for a little over a millennia --- a long time for anyone, and even more so for someone who couldn’t interact with most people he met, and in this time, he’d seen it all. Lovers dead in separate places, teens who slit their own throats in the bath, children who fell from balconies, fathers who drank themselves to a death no brighter than life. The Maitlands were no different than all the rest: lost, desperate, and a little bit homesick. The poor suckers fell through an unsteady floor, crashing into the basement with a sickening thud, and BJ, despite his insistence on watching, missed the whole show. He likes to imagine what it sounded like --- the crack of broken bones, the moans as breath escaped one last time. What a symphony it must have been, he thinks. What a spectacle.

From the moment he saw them, he knew that this case would be different, though he couldn’t quite place why. He posed himself as but an innocent assistant, a sort of after-life coach here to show them the ropes and help them to understand their newfound ghost-hood. The woman, with flowing blonde hair and eyes that begged for the truth, said he gave her the creeps. What a compliment, he wanted to say, what a way to start things off! The man at her side, all crooked glasses and frown of uncertainty, simply wanted answers. Of course, they all wanted answers --- it was all BJ heard from new clients, new ghosts he wanted to befriend or torment ( or, perhaps, a bit of both ): is there a Heaven, is there a Hell, is there a meaning to life. All great questions, and all things BJ himself asked when he first died. 

Okay, perhaps he hasn’t been completely honest.

Their names, he soon learned, were Barbara and Adam Maitland. They owned a shop in the heart of town, where they sold hardware supplies and, more often than not, found themselves entertaining the older generation as they rattled on about grandchildren and family reunions and the ever-growing flock of children that carried on their name. Adam enjoyed the discussions, even encouraging them to give details, to tell stories of a time when life was much simpler and children could roam the city freely, without fear or restraint. Barbara, of course, rarely protested the chit-chat herself; she and her husband of many years were even trying to have a baby of their own. She wanted a girl; Adam just wanted the three of them to be happy. But, as love stories often go, the three of them would soon become two --- a miscarriage, it would seem, was in their destiny, and the two would require time to cope, to come to terms with this unseen loss of a life invisible, nonexistent even before it could become anything else.

When the floor caved beneath them, the wooden crib remained balanced between the splintered floor and the safety of the remainder of the room. It dangled there, a mobile sustained in an endless suspense, anticipation that would never come to fruition. Were he a sentimental man, BJ would even think this ironic: an empty bed, longing for a life that would never arrive. He saw no children in the rubble, no babies lying lifeless beneath wood and nails; he was observant, and though he would never admit it, he was a bit saddened by the sight. He never lost a child, but his own childhood was long gone, tainted by centuries of solitude and only a vague memory of a heartbeat, a slap on the wrist, a shove from the woman he remembers as his mother --- the same woman who now served as a sort of security for the great beyond poorly dubbed the Netherworld. BJ liked to ignore this place; he liked to be free of restraint, away from any and all personal connections. He liked to be alone, or so he thought.

 They screamed when they first saw him, all green hair and wild eyes and striped suit that has seen better days. He knew why they were screaming: he was a stranger, after all, standing near their deathbed like a ferryman awaiting orders. By his best estimations, they had been dead for a little under two months; in this time, their souls had been in a sort of limbo, an empty purgatory that even BJ himself didn’t fully understand yet. The handbook said nothing more about it, and he never interacted with anyone else to ask ( lest he admit to being idiotic, lest he admit to not knowing everything like he so often claims to ). He offered to help them rid their home of the newly arrived living intruders: the Deetz family, with their teenage daughter obsessed with death, the mother with her affinity for bad art and terrible fashion choices. The father seemed content to live in an absent manner, all distance and nonchalance, but this house would not be the quiet, peaceful country home he dreamt of. BJ would make sure of this.

He tried his best to teach the couple to scare, to spook, to startle. All of the best tricks were performed, his favorites drawing out amused laughter from the girl with beautiful blonde hair, and the man with fogged glasses and a smile bright enough to rival the sun; it had been a while since BJ had actually seen the sun, all orange hues and yellow rays, but he supposes Adam’s smile must be a lot like that --- blinding if you look too long, unbearably hot if you get too close. This was how BJ liked to imagine the two fell in love: Barbara looked through a crowd and saw the man with the gentle smile and soft hands, with eyes beautiful enough to drown in, and Adam looked to see the woman with the kind soul, the eyes that sought a soft place to land. They would be lovers for all of eternity, through life and death, and they would be happy. BJ felt some responsibility in continuing this trend; he wasn’t sure why, and so in typical Beetlejuice fashion, he shoved the thought aside. It would be easier that way, he thought, for when their paths eventually disconnected, just as they always did.

As the days went on, and after he withdrew his support of the recently deceased couple, he watched them from afar. Adam paced nervously, fingers tapping against hands, eyes darting from floorboard to floorboard. The crib remained unpolished, the bed remained empty. They met and befriended the teenage daughter of the Deetz family, a girl with bright blonde hair like Barbara, and witty remarks like Adam; this isn’t to say he thought of the Maitlands frequently, nor is it to say that he sought out traits that made him feel safe. BJ did not do relationships; he had learned his lesson once, with a show girl whose name still weighs heavy on his tongue. He would only marry once, and she would be a beautiful wife --- but, as love stories often go, two would become only one. He swore that he would not marry again, nor would he date; relationships didn’t survive for long in the afterlife, and monogamy wasn’t his style, anyway.

Maybe he’s been lying just a little bit.

The couple tries, and fails, to scare the family away with a calypso performance that would astound any believer in the paranormal, even more so a non-believer. Still, the family of three did not run; they did not cower in fear, nor did they marvel at the outstanding abilities of their ghoulish company. Then, BJ would claim he saw this coming: his name was called thrice, three times in a row, unbroken and clear as day. With a grin and a snap of his fingers, it was showtime, and put on a show, he did. For the first time in a long time, he was seen, he was heard. He wondered if this was how it felt to be alive and, as with the many other thrills in his undead life, BJ got addicted, and fast.

 He couldn’t describe it, but he knew he needed more.

The plan began only as a seed, buried beneath centuries of doubts and a millennia of being ignored. If there was one thing he hated most about this exiled existence, it was being invisible --- not being alone, nor hated, nor reviled, but invisible. He’d wanted this before; countless times, he’d tried tricking the living into saying his name. In the end, they would choose not to; they would move away, and soon forget about the demon in black and white, the poltergeist that longed for life. Not for the first time, he wanted what he couldn’t have. Barbara and Adam longed for the lives they lost; BJ longed for a life he never had.

This, he would defend, was only partially true.

And so, as he so often did, he offered a white lie. He would help the teenage girl to find her recently deceased mother, and she would marry him. This, he claimed, would be the only way he could come to life --- tied by an unholy matrimony, his heart would beat for the first time in centuries, and beat, it did. The taste of Adam’s lips still on his tongue, he nearly collapsed with the flood of blood through his veins, the thump, th-thump, th-thump of his heartbeat. He took a breath, and it felt so clean --- so pure. He knew then what the Maitlands had already begun to forget: life was --- no, is --- beautiful, and there was nothing in the afterlife that could compare. Not the coke, or the orgies, or the never-ending after(life) party; nothing compared to feeling air in his lungs, to being hot to the touch. It felt real, it felt ---

\--- like a sharp edge shoved through the stomach, sticky and unbearably hot.

He falls to his knees, blood pooling where the sculpture ruptured skin and entrail. He wants to scream, but feels the life leaving his lungs too urgently ( as if it had anywhere else to go, as if to say ‘look, we have done our part, now it is time for you to do yours’ ). The color fades from his skin, the body falling limp to the floor. Then, as if beginning anew, he awakens, staring his mother down; of course you would be involved, she says, and he feels a dull sense of responsibility --- for ruining the Maitlands’ chances of reclaiming their home, for causing yet another mess for someone else to clean up. Then, his mother mentions the girl.

The girl --- Lydia, who had befriended him in only a few days. Who treated him as a person, even if as a ruse to rid her life of his presence. The girl who wished for death so openly that she pressed it upon others; he died so that she could live, and this is a fact he would possess for the rest of his ( dying, dead ) days.

And so, he stops her from being taken away; no ridiculous Netherworld rules would be enforced upon a girl he tricked into submission. He could not ruin a teenager’s life in that way, not knowing she had so much life ahead of her. Barbara saw her as the daughter they never had, the girl grown too big for the unpolished crib, too proud for the ghostly parents to bear, and Adam saw her as a younger version of his wife, all spunk and spitfire and sass so poignant it stings; BJ promises them that he will never return --- says that he will leave this place in peace, disappearing into the night like a vagrant longing for the closest high. This is what he does: he arrives, he causes chaos, then he disappears. Like clockwork, he abandons anyone he meets, loved or not, liked or otherwise. It was better this way; safer. He would not forget the Maitlands, nor would he forget the child they never had; the empty crib still teetering upon splintered floorboards, the teenager in the black dress and veil, the way Barbara laughed at every stupid joke Adam said, nor the way Adam looked at him when his wife wasn’t paying him any mind --- his lips tasted like vanilla and honey, and BJ tastes this in every other man he kisses for the next two years ).

So no, BJ doesn’t do relationships; hell, he barely does friends. Through story, he sustains a life of mystery. Through memory, he sustains a life of peace, all quiet love and gentle affection, stolen kisses in the early morning sun and rough sex against the midnight sky. These are things he cannot, and will not, ever receive, but it was nice to dream. It was nice to imagine, and it was an act he often played in the motion picture of his mind, when loneliness crept up, when isolation reared its ugly head; he would remember, and he would revel, before doing the same thing again and again. After all, he thinks, it’s showtime.

  



End file.
